Take a few minutes today and stop by Bruce Dierbeck\’s website for some good observational stuff. He actually nailed a couple things I have actually been thinking about posting on:

First, read his post on going to get a haircut. I myself have run into a similar problem where I get my hair cut. My \”stylist\” recently graduated from whatever made up hair cutting school she attends, so now it costs me more to have her cut my hair (I\’m like those morbidly obese old women who spend a hundred bucks on a hairstyle, only to look like a morbidly obese woman with an expensive hairstyle. It\’s not going to land you the cover of Vogue, ladies.) I\’m sure it\’s really tough to move up to the next stylist level – a lot of classwork, some lab time, research on the cultural significance of sideburns, etc. In fact, I see a lot of cosmetology scholarly work cited in Supreme Court opinions.

So, anyway, I should probably switch women who cut my hair. But I just don\’t have the heart to do it. I would feel like I\’m cheating on my girl. I already switched once, and the woman I left stares daggers at me when I walk around with my current one. And it\’s not like I can pretend I\’m just there to fix the plumbing or anything – I am, after all, wearing a big sheet around me and my hair is wet. No plausible deniability there. And to add injury to insult, she has to watch this go on at her place of work. She has to sit there, three chairs away, and watch the customer that got away get a fantastic haircut, and willingly pay more for it. I think I would be more comfortable if George Clooney moved into my house to give my wife around the clock footrubs.

So I just don\’t know what to do. It seriously is worth the higher price to me just to not have to leave my current stylist and deal with all the drama. I just can\’t risk being the only male in a place full of so may pairs of scissors when there\’s so much tension in the air. Maybe I should just suck it up, Hugh Grant-style, admit my mistake, and throw myself on the mercy of my original cutter. I just don\’t know if I can do it. After we\’ve been through so much.

SIDE NOTE: You can tell at the classy places that the traditional hair washing ritual is much more of a hair wash/massage combo. And it feels great. So good, in fact, that I try to think about something else to make sure I don\’t actually enjoy it. It just doesn\’t feel right to love another woman rubbing your head that much. Does that make me a good husband or an absolute moron?

Secondly, check out Bruce\’s post on parrots. This confounds me. Wake up, people! THERE\’S AN ANIMAL THAT TALKS!

Seriously, if some farmer woke up one morning and discovered that one of his goats could talk, the world would grind to a halt. It would dominate the news (and if the goat knew the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway, Greta van Susteren\’s head would explode like the Nazis at the end of \”Raiders of the Lost Ark.\”) I would have trouble getting out of bed, thinking the apocalypse was upon us.

But here we have an animal that lives among us that talks, and nobody seems to care. We all go on living our daily lives pretending as if parrots don\’t even exist. I pass people on the street all the time, and you can just tell that there seems to be an understanding between humans that we\’re just not supposed to talk about it. Every now and then, if you make eye contact with someone you don\’t know, you get the subtle \”I know about parrots\” head nod, indicating that deep, deep down, they are dying to talk it out.

Unfortunately, I think this will all end badly. Soon, you\’ll see a parrot go in and shoot up a McDonald\’s as a cry for attention.